In the process of mechanization and rationalization in steel and rolling mills, the autogenous torch cutting with heating gas and oxygen, which in contrast to other separating procedures does not only have the undesirable characteristics of loss of material and slag accumulation but especially the formation of only with difficulty removable cutting beards at the separated blooms or slabs, has become extremely important, mainly because of continuous steel casting. Those cutting beards hang on the basic material with a metallic bridge and are mainly rolled while they are still warm during transport over the roller table, fall down in the furnaces used for heating up to rolling temperature and in the worst case still adhere to the work piece during the rolling process. Dirt accumulation and disturbances in different plant parts and unpermitted product depreciations are the consequences.
Besides the known beard removals by hand through scarfing, knocking off, chiselling off, and abrasive cutting there exist corresponding mechanical procedures which mainly--because of the shape of the working pieces, like concave and convex cross sections, diagonal and unregular cuts but also because of beards sizes, material characteristics and cutting equipment--deliver more or less satisfying operation results. One conventional technique illustrated in FIGS. 1a-1c is the use of a compressed-air cooled, pipe-like body, which is lifted by cylinders 12, and presses a number of deburring pistons 4 with deburring caps, guided out from the pressure room by cylinder bushes 12 against the work piece's lower surfaces for best contact on convex or concave slab surfaces 2. The slab 2 moved by the roller table slides over the deburring caps thus shifting-off the cutting beard. It is also possible that the slab 2 does not move and the deburring installation is moving after the contact of the deburring caps.